Cause and Effect
by hyacinthian
Summary: Rachel's practice leads to some unexpected effects. RachelFinn.


He looks at her like she's crazy.

She blinks, sticking her hip out as she sighs with exasperation. "_What_?"

"Rachel, you – you can't be serious!"

"Of course I'm serious," she says, with an eye roll. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

"You _sound _like you're joking."

"I assure you I'm being perfectly serious," she says, tossing her hair.

"I'm sorry," Kurt chimes in with a perfect note of sarcasm, "You want us to practice _moaning_?" She nods. "It's a hiss, _ah, push it_. How much effort does it take?"

Rachel arches a brow. "If the stereotype of bad porn is to be taken seriously, then obviously, moaning _isn't _easy."

Finn chokes on his water mid-gulp. "Rachel, you watch porn?"

She rolls her eyes. "Of course I don't watch porn! I said the _stereotype _of bad porn. But leave it to you to jump straight for the sex."

"I agree with Kurt, Rachel." Kurt, stunned, manages to nod. "It's more of a thing you feel."

"There," Kurt says, hands on his hips. "Boy toy agrees with me. Can we go now, _El Jefe_?"

She clicks her tongue against her teeth. "This is a very sexual song," she says as Mercedes leans her head on her arms with a sigh. "And in our arrangement, the _hiss_, as Kurt calls it, could become something…prettier." Rachel then demonstrates the different pitches, volumes, lengths, and tones the one "ah, push it," can take. And he's trying really, really hard to stop himself from looking like his brain's going to explode. Rachel talking about porn is one thing, but Rachel talking about porn and moaning in the same ten minutes – that's going to take some time to digest. Even Kurt's got his lips pursed (a sign of definite second-thinking). Tina's flushed and fanning herself.

"W-wow," she says. Rachel beams.

"It's all about the desired effect," she chirps, cheerfully. _Right_, he thinks. _Effect_. _That's the word for it_. "And then once we pick one to go with, it's just a question of harmonizing. Or, if we want to do a separate boys and girls thing, we can choose to do that too. Like a musical metaphor for sex."

"That's about as subtle as your gold star metaphor," Kurt mutters.

Rachel looks up, well-trained for the sound of criticism. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing," he says with a smile.

Finn shakes his head. "This is like… sleeping with the judges to win. It's cheating."

"We're _song _sleeping with them, Finn, not _real _sleeping with them." She crosses her arms over her chest. "It's fair game."

Kurt agrees, however reluctantly. "Those Carmel kids practically have a Cheerio on their team. We have Artie. No offense, Artie."

"None taken."

"This evens it up."

"Because none of us can do backflips, we have to song sleep with the judges?" Finn asks, confused.

Rachel nods, determined. "Finn, no one buys the sick puppy in the window." He's not even sure if that sentence makes sense.

He shakes his head. "Rachel, Mr. Schue will never let us do this."

Mercedes lifts her head wearily. "I don't know about that," she says. "Mr. Schue _rapped _today about gold diggers -- _Kanye_, Mr. Schue did _Kanye_, so up is down and down is up, he could be open to it. We don't know."

"Plus," Artie says, trying to be helpful. "His wife is pregnant."

Tina sets a hand on his shoulder. "That doesn't make sense, A-dawg."

"I hear women going hormonal makes men stressed. Stress makes people forget things. I hear things, you know." Finn closes his eyes. This club is going to make him crazier every day, he can feel it. He's already halfway down the straightjacket brick road.

After rehearsal, Rachel comes up to him, books in her arms. "We should rehearse our part of the dance number," she says. "It needs a little work."

He looks down at the floor. Yeah, he remembers their part of the choreography. "Tonight?" he squeaks.

She shakes her head. "I have to work on a report for next week."

"When do you have to hand it in?"

"Next week."

"_Next week?_ Rachel, you have like a week and a half left. Why do it tonight?"

"Procrastination is not a godly trait, Finn Hudson." He swears she broke into the guidance office just so she could say his name with that perfect mix of disappointment and surprise. Great, now he's _paranoid_. Yep, glee is _definitely _making him crazier than he used to be. He used to be normal and well-adjusted! Now he's going to be the dude down the street who thinks aliens are using tin foil as communication devices with certain plants in the population.

She brushes past him and out the door.

A couple weeks later, when they're rehearsing the number the night before a performance for the school, she gets really into it, throwing her hips around. She arches her back when it's their section of choreography a little more than she did before, hips sliding against his and with that moan? "Push It" is going to win some judge over, he thinks, if she does that every performance.

_Yeah_, he thinks, looking up and flushing pink with embarrassment. _There's an effect._ (Mr. Schue has trouble hiding his laugh when he sees Finn excuse himself and rush to the bathroom. Rachel, for her part, just blinks innocently and asks where Finn has gone.)

"Well," he says, later that night, when he's on the phone with her, "I think if you've got male judges, you're golden."

"You mean _we're_ golden."

"Yeah, that's what I meant."

"Finn?" she asks.

"Yeah," he says, casting a dirty glance at his algebra textbook, with a big red post-it on it detailing all his overdue assignments.

"Your, ahem, _reaction _today?"

"Oh, yeah," he says, interrupting. "I'm really sorry about that, Rachel. I get how it could make things…well, awkward…or make you feel…I didn't do it on purpose."

"I got that by the way you ran to the bathroom."

"Just clearing the air."

"Yeah," she says, quietly. And then, a soft sigh later, she's back to her cheerful, demanding self. "You haven't even opened your algebra book, have you?"

"Rachel," he says, hamming it up, "It's _staring _at me."

"Shut up and open it," she says with a soft laugh. "I'll help you."

"What, over the phone?"

"I wouldn't want you to have to drop out of football."

"Or glee," he adds.

"Or glee," she repeats.

He smiles and grabs the algebra book as she starts jabbering in the short gap they have about what she's considering to use to apply to Julliard.


End file.
